Computer software and hardware operations, especially those that involve complex interactions between different computers such as those supporting various networking protocols and distributed transactions, often have to be extensively tested to ensure that they function properly. Typically, to test a given type of computer interactive operation, a set of test computers are chosen to run a test case that includes a sequence of tasks to be performed by different ones of the test computers in an interactive fashion. In one conventional test framework, the execution of the task sequence of the test run is controlled by a centralized test controller. The test control goes through the sequence of tasks one by one, instructs a corresponding test computer to carry out one task, receives the result of the task, and instructs another test computer to carry out the next task in the sequence based on the outcome of the previous task.
The use of a centralized controller to control the automated execution of distributed computer tasks, however, places a significant constraint on the availability of test computers. To enable the centralized control, each test computer is required to form a communication link with the centralized test controller to receive instructions and report task execution status and results. This requirement excludes many computers that do not have the capability of forming a direct network connection with the controller from being used for distributed computer testing.